It is understandable that websites like The Pirate Bay are a thorn in the side of copyright holders around the world, and the industries that rely on intellectual property to make money, like movie studios and record labels. This is why it hardly comes as a surprise to learn that in Singapore, changes made to the country’s Copyright Act will now force internet service providers to block illegal websites.
Prior to this, copyright holders had to submit takedown requests to internet service providers, as noted by CNET. Even then the requests could be ignored at the discretion of the internet service provider, but like we said, with the new changes in the Copyright Act, providers will now have to comply and block websites that are deemed to be illegal and infringing upon copyrighted material.
All the copyright holder will have to do is submit an application to the Singaporean High Court, after which an internet provider will be ordered to block the offending website. While this is a great way to ban copyright infringing websites, it hardly seems like a concrete solution, namely because the more tech savvy users will be able to use VPNs to bypass the block and continue access said websites anyway.
However we guess it will deter the less tech savvy users who aren’t familiar with VPNs from accessing such websites, at least until a friend or family points them in that direction.